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This functionality was actually delivered with an interim release as Version 4.0.6.1. Since only a summary of changes is given for interim releases, we now offer a more detailed explanation of this new feature.

When on the READ side in the TextFile Adapter a UTF/Unicode text file is selected that contains an encoding that commences with a few special bytes called a BOM (byte order mark) then the corresponding code page is recognized automatically and set. This automatic recognition only works for Unicode/UTF files with a BOM (byte order mark). Unfortunately, for other types of file the code page must be manually selected as before. The default code page remains unchanged as the Windows ANSI code page defined in the system settings.

FlowHeater Server ManagerAt last, the anxiously awaited first FlowHeater Server Version has now been released. The features of FlowHeater Server include running scheduled and event triggered automated tasks without the need for user login. High levels of flexibility were the focus during development, for this reason not only can FlowHeater Definition files be executed, there is also support for EXE files  as well as scripts with extensions CMD, BAT und PS1 (=Power Shell).

FlowHeater Server is scalable from the “lowly” workstation to the high-performance server with multiple processors.

FlowHeater Server is automatically licensed with a valid Company License (Standard or Runtime) and so can be used for free.

The lines in text files are usually either terminated by a two-byte sequence CR LF (0x0D0A) under Windows or by a single byte LF (0x0A) under Linux/Unix or Mac OS X. Both kinds of terminator have previously been supported by the TextFile Adapter. However, the format of text files is occasionally specified differently and an alternative character or sequence of characters are used for the record/row line breaks. The TextFile Adapter now supports freely defined characters for the recognition of line terminators, which means non-standard text files can now be processed in the normal way. Any character or string can be specified as the line terminator.

In addition to implementing several improvements, this version notably extends the date and time calculations of "Now" and "DaysDiff" Heaters (Functions) with further flexibility.

The functionality of FlowHeater has been enhanced with a new and powerful feature: Environment variables can now be used as placeholders for dynamic configuration settings, in addition to FlowHeater Parameters.

If you wish to use environment variables this way, you enclose them in percent signs. For example, by specifying %TEMP% you refer to the TEMP folder defined in your system settings and you could use “%TEMP%\%USERNAME%_export.csv” as a dynamic path and filename for exporting a CSV file in the TextFile Adapter, etc.

Environment variables can be used anywhere you would otherwise use FlowHeater Parameters and of course you can combine them as you wish, e.g. “%TEMP%\$DATUM$_export .csv”.